The Liberal Arts Conundrum

As high school students across the country prepare to accept or decline offers of college admission, we are quickly approaching the end of a season that has left many teenagers (not to mention their parents) wondering how post-secondary education will impact their lives. The decisions can be nerve-wracking, prompting difficult conversations about family finances and even harder-to-answer queries. Chief among them is this one: if I choose this school, when I come out of my education, will it–the money, the studies, the worry, the investment of resources–be worth it?

We’re asking a variety of experts to consider these concerns and then respond to the following question: What role should the liberal arts play in higher education?

Dale J. Stephens,  founder of UnCollege and the author of Hacking Your Education: Ditch the Lectures, Save Tens of Thousands and Learn More than Your Peers Ever Will

Parents and professors tell us to get a liberal arts education so that we can learn how to think and become educated citizens. In theory, that’s a wonderful aspiration. In practice, memorizing dates of centuries-old political agreements that one could look up on Wikipedia doesn’t accomplish that aim. In a world in which the average student graduates with nearly $30,000 in debt from college and half of those who graduate under 25 are under-or-unemployed, liberal arts shouldn’t play a role in higher education. Students need to learn how to think and interact with the world, but we can’t assume they will figure that out by writing literary analysis papers and lab reports. We should explicitly teach students negotiation, communicating, design thinking, collaboration, and how to build social capital. There’s an immense skills gap, and that won’t be solved by teaching students about the Ming Dynasty or Vienna Conference.

Josipa Roksa, associate professor of sociology and education at the University of Virginia; Richard Arum, professor of sociology at the New York University

Liberal arts help to prepare students for participation in a democratic society and a globalized economy.  In Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, Richard Arum and I find that students who majored in liberal arts fields – social science, humanities, natural science and math – showed greater gains on a measure of critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing.  This was in part because students in these fields were asked to read and write more.

Educating citizens who can think critically and analyze arguments is a crucial component of a vibrant democracy.  It also benefits graduates in the labor market.  In our follow-up book, Aspiring Adults Adrift: Tentative Transitions of College Graduates, we show that students who leave college with a higher level of critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills have better labor market outcomes. They are less likely to be unemployed, less likely to lose a job, and less likely to work in an unskilled occupation. In a rapidly changing economy, where individuals change jobs frequently and employers profess the importance of generic competencies such as critical thinking, liberal arts serve as a cornerstone of learning.

Mary Alice McCarthy, senior policy analyst for the Higher Education Initiative at New America

Contrary to much writing on the liberal arts these days, they are neither an impractical indulgence with little connection to careers, nor a guarantor of critical thinking or leadership skills. As with any college major, they are what you make of them. The liberal arts can be an invaluable tool for deepening a student’s understanding of the social, cultural, and historical context in which they live. The challenge for institutions is keeping their programs rigorous and relevant. Too many students end up in the liberal arts by default: some of the majors are not challenging, requiring almost no math or science, and provide an easy path to graduation. Good liberal arts programs help students make the transition from consuming to producing knowledge. Students learn how to communicate ideas, apply concepts, analyze data, develop and test hypothesis – and not just for their instructors but for a broader audience.  In these programs, the liberal arts provide students with critical skills for engaging with the world, which is the essence of higher education. For those deciding what to study, the best advice is to go with what excites you. If you don’t enjoy learning, you’ll never be good at it – and you need to get good at it. If you like building things or solving technical problems, steer clear of the liberal arts. But if what you’re learning in your history, literature, philosophy, or sociology classes is keeping you up late talking with friends, don’t be afraid to follow your passion. Just engage fully with your education. And make sure you learn how to write well.

Jeffery J. Selingo, professor of practice at Arizona State University and author of College (Un)Bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students and MOOC U: Who is Getting the Most Out of Online Education and Why

In an increasingly complex world where the economy is charging at warp speed, the foundation of learning—a liberal-arts education—is more important than ever. The amount of knowledge in the world has doubled in the past ten years and is doubling every 18 months, according to the Association for Talent Development. We need college graduates who have the knowledge to work across a variety of complex subject areas with ease and confidence. The liberal arts prides itself on teaching students how to learn so they can find their fifth job. But they also need to find the first job that comes from a practical education. College is both about training for a job and getting a broad education. Too often we think of it as an either/or instead of a both/and. As I research my next book about the transition from education to the workforce, I’ve been asking employers what they most want when they recruit those with newly-minted bachelor’s degrees. Sure, they want specific skills, but they also value the education provided by the liberal arts: curiosity, writing, critical thinking, and problem solving. The role the liberal arts should play in higher education is helping students translate what they’ve learned in the classroom so that they can apply their knowledge to real-world problems and craft a narrative for potential employers about their journey through learning.

Robert Weisbuch,  director of Robert Weisbuch and Associates, former president of Drew University

An education in the arts and sciences transmits wisdom across the ages, a crucial task but not its only virtue.  It’s also about opening up the world.  A life without this sense that everything is interesting and related is a life impoverished and impractical.  For the liberal arts also lead to action.  Because they model the free spirit of enquiry, they teach us how to be citizens who embrace difference.  They require us to consider every view, including those we find threatening, and to think beyond the self. Finally, the liberal arts teach us to invest our interests in a deeply meaningful career.  As a major industrialist told me, “I can train someone for a particular job in no time.  But I can’t train someone to develop a critical and creative intelligence, to problem-solve, to teach and to learn.”  The practical liberal arts, in Michael Roth’s good phrase, apply the gains of learning to every aspect of a person’s life and to the growing good of the world.  Instead of worrying the worth of the liberal arts, we should endeavor to make them available to all and create a renaissance in our own time.